Naikari: Eye of Chaös 0.9.0

It’s about time for another update to Naikari: Eye of Chaös, and this is a real nice one! We’ve had our most productive month in a long time despite having a cold that lasted a week.

The most defining feature of this release is interface improvements. We finally got around to implementing the brand-new “Neo” GUI, which combines the advantages of the Brushed and Slim GUIs into one package; this new GUI is now the default, althô old GUIs can still be accessed if you want to use them.

We also reorganized and substantially upgraded both the mission computer and commodity exchange. The mission computer now allows easily searching for missions by location; the days of having to scroll thru missions one-by-one are gone! The commodity exchange is even more significantly improved, with a map added that shows the per-system prices of the selected commodity.

And while interface improvements like these are the star of the show, we made a lot of gameplay improvements as well. In addition to adding some more missions to the Hakoi Pirates campaign, we also majorly improved the Trader Escort computer mission: it now has you leading the fleet, rather than following. We intend to extend this change to the other escort missions thruout the game as well, but that will require some more testing and we didn’t want that to delay this release, so it will be done in a future release (or possibly multiple future releases; we may do it one at a time). In fact, there are several other small mission improvements, too, and we’re working on more, particularly connected to allowing more missions and events to coëxist with each other as we work to make Naikari’s large systems more dynamic and interesting.

And that’s not all! See the changelog for a complete list of changes. As always, if you give it a try, please let us know what you think! 🙂

Changelog

Major Changes

• Added the Neo GUI, a new GUI intended to combine the strengths of the Brushed and Slim GUIs, as the new default GUI.
• Redesigned the Commodity tab of the land window:
  • Selected commodity information now sits below the commodity list, and does not include the commodity graphic.
  • Where the selected commodity information previously was, it now displays a map showing the “cost” view for the selected commodity.
• Redesigned the mission computer:
  • The positions of the mission description and the map have been swapped, giving the map more space.
  • The map now shows the markers for all unaccepted missions, not just the one you happen to have selected. The one you have selected is hilighted so you can still easily see where it is.
  • The mission list now hilights missions whose destination is your currently selected system.
  • The map is now displayed in minimal mode by default; this can be toggled with a “Minimal Mode” checkbox.
• Completely overhauled the trader escort mission: it now puts trader pilots under your wing (like escorts), with the caveat that you cannot issue orders to them. Completing the mission now only requires landing at the designated planet with the convoy intact. (The plan is to extend this change to unique escort missions as well, but this work hasn’t been done yet.)
• Added some more missions to the Hakoi Pirates campaign.

Other Gameplay Changes

• Hypergates event now adds knowledge of the hypergates.
• Sirius ships no longer refuse to run away from combat by default. (They now run away with the same amount of damage as Empire and Soromid ships.)
• Patrol missions now cause marked hostiles to never run away.
• Most AI pilots will now stop shooting a target once it has been disabled.
• Added a simple derelict event that randomly disables some pilots when entering a system.
• Fuel request event is now more likely to appear.
• Tweaked capital-class weaponry to make the different weapon types more differentiated (to bring them in-line with their smaller counterparts).
• Doubled the disable amount for all lethal weapons (which makes the Heavy Razor Turret and Enygma Systems Spearhead Launcher a bit better and should also make pilots getting incidentally disabled during a fight a bit more commonplace).
• Baron Prince now spawns artifact hunters in any system you enter, but is less likely to do so until you confirm you found the real artifact.
• Removed the restriction that disallowed boarding a pilot multiple times.
• Pirates will now steal cargo in addition to credits from the player.

Other Interface Changes

• Exposed TC velocity via the options menu (which controls how much faster the game gets during time compression).
• The map no longer fades between modes and instead just instantly switches to the new mode. This also fixes a problem where it would always start in the default mode and then fade into the selected mode when you opened the map.
• The map trade views now explicitly include the unit (¢/kt) instead of just displaying raw numbers.
• Inverted the “high” and “low” colors for the map trade displays: orange is now used for high prices and blue is now used for low prices.
• Improved the System Info display, improving the description text’s coloring and adding information that was previously missing.
• Whether or not right-clicking on a pilot causes you to follow them is now a togglable option. (Previously it was context-dependent.)
• Made cargo mission description headers gray (the same as most headers).
• Added a display of bolt weapons’ “optimum range” (maximum range at which they inflict their full damage amount).
• Changed the mission failure messages for cargo missions to match other missions better.
• The options menu no longer (falsely) tells you that you need to restart the game to change the scale factor, and it now always properly updates after changing the scale factor setting.
• Made the FPS Limit textbox in the options menu a bit bigger.
• Moved the Reload Time stat in launchers’ stat lists to a more logical place.

Other Changes

• Fleets are now organized centrally such that if a pilot has a parent, any of its own followers will go into formation with said parent. This makes fleets look sleeker and more organized when some AI pilots in said fleets are equipped with fighter bays.
• Moved things around in Gamma Polaris to reduce conflicts in the overlay.
• Anglicized the spelling of the name of the Empire lieutenant you are recruited by, changing “Czesc” to “Chesc”.
• Changed the spellings used for some words:
  • “Minuscule” is spelled “miniscule”.
  • “Pursue” is spelled “persue”.
  • “Though” is spelled “thô”.
  • “Through” is spelled “thru”.
• Added and updated several NPC portraits.
• New games now always start with the same music track playing.
• Improved the way no-run behavior (used by some missions) is implemented.
• Started changing the way missions and events prevent conflicts away from strict system claims and toward other methods that still allow multiple missions and events to have in one system. (This is still a work-in-progress.)
• Made some optimizations to the code which should help a bit with performance in busy systems.
• Made some small improvements to the way the AI works.
• Removed the Sirius Preach event.
• Za’lek Test mission no longer refuses to spawn if another Za’lek Test mission is active.
• Trader pilots now only form groups using the standard formation; they don’t also randomly sit next to each other anymore.
• Made the different factions’ weapon use a bit more distinct.
• Removed the “Baron Flintley” event which showed up after the Prince mission.
• Collective drones are now universally unresponsive again.

Bugfixes

• Fixed the Commodity tab showing “¢” for the purchase price indication instead of the correct “¢/kt”.
• Added a proper guard against a situation that could invisibly switch your weapon set to an empty one (althô this was unlikely to actually happen due to Naikari’s default weapon sets).
• Fixed an issue where pressing the Starmap key to close the starmap would fail to run code that was supposed to run when the starmap closed (and thus caused some display oddities).
• Fixed land window tabs other than the commodity tab not updating when cargo was added to or removed from the player’s ship.
• Fixed an issue in Baron Prince where exiting and reloading the game while landed at an artifact seller NPC’s planet would cause you to have to takeoff reland to spawn the NPC again.
• Fixed cinematics mode messing with the GUI viewport when it shouldn’t (which caused the Slim GUI to be messed up during cinematics).
• Fixed AI not being able to behave properly when out of fuel.
• Fixed a long-standing bug where AI pilots could get stuck spinning around in circles while trying to land and a similar bug when trying to hyperspace.
• Fixed filtering for outfits always checking against English names even when another language is the current language.
• Fixed the class of Marius Station.
• Fixed the Empire Recruitment mission sometimes choosing Hakoi as its destination.
• Fixed Aillis not having common outfits available.